NYANnichuan!
by Crescent Pulsar
Summary: Ranma still falls into the nyannichuan that we all know and love. Well, opinions may vary about the "love" part. Either way, I'm not about to let the cat out of the bag in the summary. Er, maybe...?
1. Preface & Prologue

**Preface**

I don't have a lot of ideas for this story aside from the premise, much less an ending for it, so I'm pretty much going to be winging it with this one. (Though I _do_ intend to cross this over with several other series down the road.)

If you can't already tell from the title and the summary, this is mainly just a not-all-that-serious diversion if I'm not in the mood to write something else. Basically, if I'm not making much progress on the business end of things elsewhere, I might as well be doing _something_, right?

Wait, that last part didn't sound quite right...

Anyway, for those who might end up wondering, certain similarities between this story and Noy Telinú's "The Atoning Cat-Girl" are a coincidence. Which is kind of funny, because Noy made the publishing of their story the deadline for mine, which — seeing as their story has already been published — I failed to meet. All I knew of theirs was the pairing, and all they knew of mine was that Ranma was going to be a catgirl.

...I bet Noy was giggling mischieviously the entire time. U_U

**Prologue**

On one seemingly ordinary Spring afternoon in Nerima, some of its denizens were treated to a strange sight. What made it strange wasn't the fact that an endangered species — namely a panda — was charging down one of their streets (which was more cause for alarm than anything else), but that it was being chased by a young woman who appeared to be cosplaying as a catgirl.

The young woman in question was rather petite in many respects, with the very notable exceptions being the attributes that let everyone know that she was — indeed — a young _woman_. That idea was helped along by the sleeveless, short-skirted and curve-hugging qipao that she wore, which left very little to the imagination. And if that wasn't eye-catching enough, then her exotic red hair, which flowed behind her like a flag, could be seen more clearly from a far greater distance.

She garnered even more attention when she abandoned the large backpack that she had been carrying and pounced on her quarry. Some of that attention had been temporary, however, because many of the men nearby had bled from the nose and collapsed while she had been airborne. As for everyone else, they continued to watch as she knocked over the much larger panda onto its face and proceeded to ride on its back as their momentum carried them a ways down the rain-slicked street.

Before they came to a complete stop, the rider leapt off of her ride and did a flip and a twist in midair so she would be facing her opponent when she landed. Even as her audience was being captivated by her feats of strength and grace, the beast to her beauty began to pick itself up from the ground, rising steadily until it was standing on its hind legs.

Said beast caught most of the crowd's attention when it pulled out a wooden signpost from some unknown source and held it up. For those standing at an agreeable vantage point, they could see that it read, "I won't allow you to trick them with your lies!"

Those witnessing their exchange watched in bemusement as the young woman actually replied to the message on the signpost in all seriousness, as if she expected the animal to understand her. "You should have thought of that before you told me about the engagement."

One moment they were standing still, with only a hint of preparedness for what was about to transpire, and in the next they met halfway in a flurry of limbs and seemingly-impossible maneuvers. The fight ended nearly as quickly as it had started, with the larger of the two combatants being thrown into a road sign and onto their back, much to the surprise of their audience.

"Besides," the young woman picked up from where she had left off, as she stood over her fallen opponent, "as far as I'm concerned, I'd be lying if I went along with whatever _you_ expected me to say, as if nothing's changed."

By now a fair amount of people had gathered together, and they began to murmur amongst themselves as they watched the young woman turn her back on the panda and make her way over to the backpack that she had discarded earlier. Most of their hushed conversations ended, however, when the panda sat up and grabbed the road sign that it had been lying on. A few had enough time to gasp or yell a syllable's worth of something by the time it had rushed up to the young woman, in an attempt to strike her from behind. Whether or not the effort of some to warn her had any bearing on the result of the sneak attack, said result was soon made clear: she bowed forward, and as the road sign passed overhead she raised one of her legs behind her and solidly planted a foot under the panda's chin, which launched it high into the air.

The sounds of the road sign and the panda hitting the ground were pronounced by the silence that followed the young woman's handling of them, as many stared at her with a mixture of disbelief and amazement. The subject of their attention simply released a sigh and continued what she had been doing before, as if nothing of any real consequence had just taken place. However, once she had retrieved her backpack, and was in the process of reaching out for one of the panda's feet, it was then that she finally took notice of her audience with a pair of blinking, guileless eyes.

Said audience hadn't known what to expect from her, seeing as they had no real idea regarding the hows and whys of all that they had seen, so they hadn't expected her to suddenly perk up with a mildly bashful smile and rub the back of her head as she said, "Ah, sorry for making such a scene. I'm afraid that we got a bit too carried away while we were practicing a part of our act. We'll be going now."

As the young woman began to haul the panda away with her, without any care for the incredulous expressions and murmurred questions that she left in her wake, many began to wonder if they would ever understand what had just happened, while others simply decided that they had imagined the whole thing.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

As Ranma made her way to the Tendo dojo, unmindful of the attention that she drew from those that she passed by, she reflected on her father's foolishness. Despite having made it quite clear that she wanted to live as a girl, he had refused to accept it and constantly fought with her over it. Just thinking about it made her tail twitch, in a way that conveyed her irritation for any onlooker who couldn't see her face.

Living as a girl hadn't been her first choice, or even her second, but she had been convinced that she would be better off that way. That probably wouldn't have been the case had she turned out to be a normal girl with the usual Jusenkyo curse, but her circumstances were rather unique and ultimately a lot more beneficial considering what they could have been. In the end, said benefits had outweighed her reasons for wanting to be a man, which had mostly been trivial when all had been said and done anyway.

One of those benefits was having a good sense for when some form of misfortune was imminent, and it was at that moment that it began to alert her that something was about to happen. Her cat ears were yet another benefit that had come with her choice, and she realized what the misfortune might be when she heard her father's breathing change. Rather than give him a chance to attack and get away with whatever he had planned for her, she acted quickly and swung him face-first into a nearby lamppost without warning, which returned him to a state of unconsciousness before he could do more than release a startled yelp.

She ignored the shocked and gaping expressions from the people around her as she continued onward, her father once again an insensate mass of flesh as she dragged him along behind her. When she heard the lamppost fall over behind her a few seconds later, she couldn't help chuckling to herself because of another benefit that had come with being a girl: she now surpassed her father in terms of fighting ability, and being the one that came out on top had yet to lose its appeal.

Not long after the incident with her father, as she was about to pass by the entrance to someone's residence, she was once again alerted by a sense of impending misfortune. She paused, guessing that the trouble lie ahead of her because of the sound of splashing water that she had heard earlier, and a few seconds later she saw a ladle toss water onto the sidewalk in front of her, where she would have been at that moment had she continued walking. She didn't have to wait long before she saw an old woman appear from behind the perimeter wall, who began to wash more of the sidewalk in front of her home even though the recent rainfall should have made it unnecessary.

As she waited for the old woman to complete her task, who didn't even seem to notice her presence nearby, she thought of the other reason for why she had chosen to live as a girl: to have more control over her situation. However, she hadn't fully realized the significance of her choice until she had experienced for herself how often she would be exposed to water of either temperature when it was undesirable, rather than from just basing her decision on someone's word of advice alone.

Unlike most individuals cursed by Jusenkyo, she was fortunate enough to be able to consciously stay in her current form as a result of being as much of a spiritual entity as a physical one, due to the nyannichuan curse interacting with the effects of her neko-ken training. As it turned out, the neko-ken training was meant to be traumatic enough to affect one's spirit via the mind, so one could channel the spirit of a cat in order to gain the desired abilities. That had left its mark on her spirit, which the curse had expressed as only something magical in nature might: by manifesting it physically.

While the white cat ears and tail would likely continue to give her some problems as far as living among humans was concerned, she had experienced too much of a nomadic lifestyle to really care about what it might prevent her from doing in more formal settings and lines of work. For someone like her, having better night vision, hearing, sense of smell, flexibility and sense of balance, in addition to being more agile, more than made up for something like that. And as a very welcome bonus, being part-cat allowed her to use the neko-ken without having to be out of her mind.

Best of all, her one, true fear was no longer as much of a problem as it had once been. Thanks to the benefits of being part-cat, she was able to see cats in a new way, due in no small part to the fact that she couldn't very well be afraid of herself. She could now perceive them as equals of sorts, which went a long way in combating her ailurophobia. Now that she was part-cat, she also felt that it would be even more embarrassing to be afraid of them, which served as yet another good incentive to overcome her fear. And with the progress that she had already made toward that end, for the first time she could look forward to the possibility of actually being unafraid of cats in the future, which had its own advantageous effect on the rehabilitation process.

When the old woman had finished her task, who — at her age — had probably done it more out of habit than with any serious thought, Ranma continued onward without further delay. Upon reaching her destination, she stood outside of its walls and stared at the traditional Japanese home that she could see beyond the open gate, unsure of what to do. What her new senses were picking up about the place were nearly overwhelming, and she didn't know what to make of it because it felt neither bad nor good.

Deciding that she would need to find out what it meant for the sake of future reference, and that it would be a waste of time to turn away right at the end of her journey, she resolved to move forward with her original plan. Before doing so, however, she let go of her father's leg and leapt up to the house's roof, so she could get a good idea of where she could toss her father instead of leaving him on the porch or transporting him through the house. Upon finding a suitable location, she returned to her father and tossed him over the wall after swinging him around a few times, making sure that he would land in the garden's koi pond.

After hearing a satisfying splash from well beyond the wall, she wiped imaginary dust away from her hands and made her way to the front door, which she slid open before she announced her presence and stepped into the genkan. Between her father's arrival and her female voice, she wasn't surprised when there was an obvious delay in being received by any of the house's residents. When someone finally made an appearance, they approached her confidently yet cautiously.

The person in question was a middle-aged man who had somewhat long, dark hair and a mustache, and who wore a brown yet otherwise nondescript dōgi. Between her short stature and where she stood, his height towered over her own by a third of a meter, but she could tell that he was fairly tall to begin with. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that a girl around her own age had tagged along with him, who had chosen to stand a bit behind a corner to observe her from a relatively safe location. She had a more modern appearance than the man did, wearing a less than modest pair of cut-off shorts and a tank top, in addition to having her hair cut in a stylish bob.

"Hello," the man greeted her politely. "May I help you?"

Ranma offered him a respectful bow before she said, "I believe you were expecting me, Tendo-san. My name's Saotome Ranma, and—"

"S-Saotome Ranma," the man interrupted in a stutter, who suddenly began to act distressed, "as in: so—_child_ of Saotome Genma?"

"That's me," Ranma confirmed, who watched as the older man began to sweat while his eyes inspected her body from head to toe, as if he hoped to find some sign of maleness beyond the obvious traits of her female form.

The girl chose that moment to leave her hiding spot and soon stood beside the man, whom she glanced at with a measure of contempt as she crossed her arms and remarked, "'No idea,' indeed, dad. 'He' is a _girl_."

The girl's father proceeded to faint, and Ranma reached out and grabbed his upper arm to prevent him from collapsing. With that taken care of, she looked at the man's daughter with an expression that asked, "How do we proceed?"

The girl released a long-suffering sigh. "Well, since you're the guest that we were expecting anyway," she made a gesture toward her father, "do you think you could bring him in with you?"

After nodding her head and receiving a simple, "thanks," in response, Ranma set aside her backpack and stepped out of her kung-fu shoes at the same time as she did the genkan, all while she continued to hold up the girl's father. She then slung said person over a shoulder and followed the girl into the house proper, who was silent as she led her into the family room.

There wasn't much of note in the family room, but its utility was both expected and welcome. Aside from a few odds and ends that hinted at recent and/or frequent activities, there was a chabudai and a small television set. Around the chabudai were the zabutons that one expected to see, and on it were several cups whose locations corresponded with where the zabutons were set. Nearby was an oscillating fan that was directed at the chabudai, but it wasn't in use at the moment.

The number of cups and zabutons hinted at two more residents, and she found them when she looked in the direction of the garden, where one was in the garden itself while the other watched her from the engawa. The one in the garden wore a white dōgi and had her long, dark blue hair accessorized by a ribbon near the end of its length, and at the moment she was squatting beside the panda while she poked at its rotund belly with a stick. The other girl wore a modest dress and had her long, chestnut hair in a ponytail, and from her current vantage point she could just barely make out the mildly troubled expression on her face.

"Hey, Kasumi," spoke the girl that she had followed, which got the girl closest to them to turn around while the one in the garden stopped jabbing with the stick and looked in their direction, "could you get dad's futon out here?"

"Oh, dear," responded the girl who stood nearby, who sighed as she placed one of her hands upon a cheek. "Did father faint again, Nabiki?"

Nabiki smirked. "Yup. He couldn't handle the 'bad' news."

"What 'bad' news?" Asked the only remaining unnamed girl as she entered the room from the garden, who regarded Ranma with a critical eye rather than looking at the person that she had posed her question to.

Nabiki grinned as she swept her hand toward Ranma and declared, "Meet our 'fiancé,' Saotome Ranma."

"You're a girl," Kasumi stated the obvious, who blushed at the implication before Nabiki's actual message occurred to her.

"Thank goodness," said the last of the three girls, who sighed with evident relief.

"No surprise there," Nabiki quipped, her words directed at the last person who had spoken, "considering your dislike for boys, Akane."

What was being suggested both angered and flustered Akane, who shouted, "Th-that's not what I meant and you know it!"

Feeling that she had been forgotten amidst their banter, but not knowing exactly how to go about getting their attention without being rude, Ranma settled for voicing _something_ rather than nothing at all. "Um..."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Kasumi quickly apologized. "I'll go and get father's futon."

As she left to do just that, Ranma found herself under the scrutiny of the other two girls, which she found to be a bit uncomfortable. It wasn't so much the attention itself that bothered her, but the glances that her feline anatomy had attracted before had returned, only now their gazes were lingering a lot more because of the cessation of other matters. It was probably only a matter of time before someone brought the subject up.

However, there was yet another matter to be addressed, and Akane broached it as she stared at Ranma with suspicion. "Say, were _you_ the one who threw the panda into our koi pond?"

Ranma had the good grace to rub the back of her head in embarrassment and look away. "Yeah, sorry 'bout that. I figured it'd be better than bringing him into the house."

Nabiki regarded her with a dubious expression on her face. "You could have just left him at the front door, you know."

"That's not the point!" Akane argued, who was now glaring at Ranma. "Pandas are an endangered species! You shouldn't treat them like that!"

Ranma sighed. "Look, I have my reasons, and I'll explain them as soon as I can relay my message to everyone, but all I can say right now is that it will be a lot more convenient to have him here instead of at the front door. So, can we put this aside for the time being?"

Akane didn't appear to be too happy about that, but she eventually crossed her arms after some consideration and grudgingly said, "Fine. Then what's up with the cat accessories?"

"I was wondering that, myself," Nabiki commented, as her eyes roamed over the so-called accessories in question.

Being that her feline traits were also a part of the explanation that she had planned to give everyone, Ranma wasn't exactly sure how to answer, in part because she didn't think that Akane would respond positively to being told that she would have to — once again — wait for an answer. In the end, she decided to be blunt about it and hope for the best, seeing as she was more familiar with that kind of tact anyway.

She sighed with resignation before stating, "They're not accessories."

Nabiki appeared to be humored by that response. "You're not actually suggesting that they're _real_, are you?"

"What are real?" Kasumi asked as she re-entered the room, who decided to wait for an answer instead of doing anything with the futon that was in her possession just yet.

Akane frowned as she watched Ranma's white tail move about rather convincingly. "She said that the cat ears and tail aren't accessories..."

Kasumi perked up with interest. "Really? Is it true?"

To her disappointment, Nabiki brushed the idea aside with a few waves of her hand and said, "Of course not. As if something like that could be true."

Ranma chose to remain silent for the time being, as Kasumi began to prepare the futon for her father. She hadn't planned on revealing what she was without it being a part of the explanation that she had already put together in advance, but it seemed like her prospective fiancées were already against the engagement. With that being the case, she figured that it probably wouldn't matter if she revealed the nature of her feline parts so soon, since it would likely reinforce their opposition rather than change their minds.

"Still," Akane said, her attention having not strayed from the tail, "how do you get it to move like that? If I didn't know any better..."

Ranma held up her free hand and said, "You can see for yourself after I lay your father down. How does that sound?"

Akane considered the offer for a second, wondering if the tail's operation was too complicated to explain, before she nodded her head. "Alright."

It wasn't long before the futon was ready to receive the girls' father, and Ranma was more than happy to transfer him to it. While Kasumi went to fetch a cloth and a basin of water so she could tend to her father, she decided to turn around and present Akane with her tail, but not before saying, "Okay, you can touch it, but _please_ be careful."

Akane felt a little awkward being so near another girl's posterior as she made her inspection, because of how it would look outside of the context, but her interest in the realistically-moving tail was far stronger than any fear of embarrassment at home. Besides, if the tail was as advanced as it seemed, then what other excuse did she need to see something new? And if anyone were to ever bring up the subject at school, then she could count herself among the knowledgeable instead of being behind the times.

However, the longer that she looked at the tail and handled it, the more uneasy she became: because the tail appeared to be so real that it was simply _un_real. And the more that she tried to prove to herself that it wasn't real, the more doubtful — and thus uneasy — she became. She was just about to chuckle awkwardly, and make a comment about how impressed she was, when she noticed a flap of the shirt being held closed by a frog above the opening for the tail. She had yet to see the base of the tail, where the fur met the flesh, and the thought of what she might find there caused her to gulp.

Not to be one so easily deterred by such a thing, she steeled herself and looked up at the tail's owner. "Um... Can I get a closer look?"

Ranma glanced over her shoulder to see how she intended to do that, and upon finding out turned away unconcernedly and said, "Go ahead."

Nabiki had been watching both of them since the start, keeping an eye on their faces and how their expressions changed throughout Akane's inspection, and by now she was seriously beginning to consider what it would mean if the feline anatomy happened to be real. After all, not only had Akane's expression continued to become that of someone being proved wrong over the course of her investigation, but Ranma's facial responses had coincided perfectly with how her tail had been handled.

Then her younger sister fell back onto her bottom, with a mix of surprise and awe on her face, and whispered, "It's real."

Ranma turned to face Akane as she reached behind herself to fasten her shirt back up. "I _did_ say that they weren't accessories, didn't I?"

Nabiki licked suddenly dry lips. "You're kidding, right?"

"Would you like to check for yourself?" Ranma offered, as she made a gesture toward one of her ears.

Akane took that as an invitation, now that her surprise had passed, and with a look of determination she joined Nabiki in examining Ranma's ears. And while they eventually determined that they were real enough, what really convinced them of their authenticity was the complete absence of her human ears: because, no matter how closely they had checked the area where they should have been, they could not find any sign of them.

"This is unbelievable," Akane breathed as she took a step back from Ranma, not knowing exactly what to think yet far more intrigued than afraid.

While Nabiki was as amazed as Akane about there being a real catgirl among them, her mind was wired a bit differently from her younger sister's: where Akane saw an interesting opportunity that would likely involve friendship, she saw a novelty and a market with a high potential for profit. The problem, as she began to envision it, was that Ranma's potential for said profit would be a lot better with the girl's cooperation. Sure, she could make money off of Ranma without her consent, but she wouldn't make nearly as much of a profit before she squandered what she had, because others would see what she saw and she wouldn't have exclusive rights to it.

"What are you thinking, Nabiki?" Akane posed with a suspicious glare.

Nabiki schooled her features and tried to convince Akane that she was innocent by acting surprised. "Who, me? Whatever do you mean?"

"Nabiki..." Akane growled.

"Oh, is Akane pretending to be a doggirl?" Kasumi inquired as she re-entered the room with a basin full of water, which had a cloth hanging from its lip.

"Of course not!" Akane was quick to respond, before she continued on a more important matter. "Besides, Ranma really _is_ a catgirl!"

By then Kasumi had sat herself behind her father's head, and her hand had paused just short of the the cloth when she looked up. "Really?"

Seeing the intense look in Kasumi's eyes made Akane pause. "Er... Yes?"

"How wonderful!" Kasumi exclaimed joyfully as she clapped her hands together, whose next words — and accompanying starry-eyed gaze — made Ranma sweat. "Can we keep her?"

Akane was a bit taken aback by her sister's behavior, even though she was well aware of her soft spot for cats, and felt a bit odd about having to chide her instead of the other way around. "She's not an animal, Kasumi! You can't just—"

"Hold on!" Nabiki interjected with an outstretched hand, who was having a brainstorm that had been inspired by Kasumi's last words and needed a bit more time to work everything out. "I think we can work with that!"

"Work with what?" Akane asked, who was as confused and/or curious as Kasumi and Ranma about what she was referring to.

After gathering her thoughts, Nabiki snapped her fingers before asking, "Okay, just to be sure, none of us are interested in the engagement, right?"

When it was confirmed that no one was interested, she focused her attention on Ranma with an inquiring and somewhat critical gaze. "Before I can move on, I'd like to have something confirmed. Our father may have been under the impression that you were a boy, but _your_ father should have known better, right?" She paused to see the catgirl's reaction before she continued, and seeing her become uncomfortable under her scrutiny confirmed what she had begun to suspect. "_Unless_, of course, you haven't always been a catgirl."

Realization dawned on Kasumi and Akane, and they both turned to regard said catgirl in a new light. While Kasumi's gaze was completely benign, the poignant suspicion and animosity in Akane's eyes caused Ranma to shrink back a bit.

"So you're a _boy_?" Akane accused, her anger clearly aroused.

"I _was_ a boy," Ranma corrected, who was more than willing to confront the unwarranted hostility. "Why, do you have a problem with that?"

Akane crossed her arms imperiously. "As a matter of fact—"

"_Girls_," Nabiki tried to head off their fight, "let's not lose sight of the real issue, here." Directing her next line of inquiry toward Ranma, who was now in a glaring match with Akane, she asked, "So, I take it that your father continues to pursue the engagement because you can still become a guy?"

"That's right," Ranma confirmed, who hadn't turned her attention away from Akane. "But I've committed myself to living the rest of my life as a girl."

That took a bit of the fire out of Akane's antagonistic stance, but her suspicion inspired her to ask, "And why is that?"

"I have a lot of reasons," Ranma hedged, who was reluctant to open up to the girl that she seemed to be at odds with, "but the short answer is that it's better this way."

"I wish _I_ was a catgirl," Kasumi sighed wistfully, before squeezing water out of the cloth and applying it to her father's forehead.

Between Kasumi creating a lull in their activity because everyone had paused to scrutinize her in some speculative way or another, and Akane backing down to consider Ranma's words, Nabiki found the opening that she needed to continue uninterrupted. And because she had received all of the right answers to her inquiries, she was finding it a bit hard to quell her eagerness to share her idea, due to the ulterior motive that had inspired its creation.

"_Anyway_," she began, using emphasis to ensure that she had everyone's attention, "now that I understand the situation better, I think I have an idea. If it works, then not only will we be able to avoid being engaged, but we could _still_ honor the reason behind the engagement, because (as our father put it) it was meant to secure our family's legacy."

Ranma was certainly intrigued by what she had heard, seeing as it was very likely that her own plan would only accomplish an uphill battle on the technicality of being a girl, what with still being able to become a boy. If she could avoid getting engaged _and_ satisfy what their fathers wanted, all while having no obligation to be a boy, then she wanted to know how to make it happen.

"What's your idea?" Ranma asked with no small amount of interest.

With a gleam in her eye, Nabiki pointed at Ranma dramatically and declared, "You'll become a part of our family, as our new pet!"

* * *

Chabudai: A short-legged table often employed in the family/living room, used for various things and occasions (which usually includes meals).

Dōgi: Martial arts training uniform.

Engawa: A hallway-like section of flooring (usually wood) separating the rooms within traditional Japanese homes from the outside, yet still allowing access to it when storm shutters and such aren't in use.

Genkan: An area — often with a recessed floor — within the entrance of a home, where one removes their shoes to avoid dirtying or damaging floors.

Zabuton: A cushion used for sitting, typically on the floor.


	3. Chapter 2

**Temporary Note**

So, like, I started some forums. Link's in my profile. Don't worry, I bite. And by bite, I mean suck. (Man, that must doubly-blow for vampires.)

**Chapter 2**

Ranma was both unamused and nonplussed by Nabiki's declaration. "You can't be serious. There's no way that I—" She stopped abruptly and turned her attention toward Akane, who hadn't put much effort into suppressing the chuckles that her sister had inspired. "Hey! It isn't funny!"

"That's right," Kasumi spoke up in agreement, her tone of disapproval snuffing out Akane's amusement. "This is a time for celebration, not mirth."

Ranma palmed her face out of exasperation. "_That's_ not right, either...!"

As Akane's amusement returned, even as Kasumi became crestfallen, Nabiki took the opportunity to make her case. There was a lot that she could gain just from getting Ranma to stick around, particularly if she were to ever feel like a member of the family, so it wasn't an opportunity that she could — in good judgement — pass up. Even if most of the profits went to the family as a whole, that was good enough for a start since she would still be making more money than she had been prior to the catgirl's arrival.

"Look," she began calmly, pausing briefly to make sure that she had Ranma's attention, "you'll be a pet in name only; we won't actually _treat_ you like one. The idea is to make you a part of the family without anyone getting married. After all, what's important for securing the legacy of a school of martial arts is _having_ the skills to pass down to the next generation." She glanced upward and placed an index finger to her chin thoughtfully. "Well, unless there's some kind of bloodline-inherited skill that we're unaware of..."

Akane released a snort upon hearing that last part. "This isn't some kind of manga or anime we're in, Nabiki."

Nabiki cocked an eyebrow and pointed at Ranma. "Catgirl, remember?"

Akane blinked her eyes a few times as she considered that. "Oh, _right_..."

"I don't know..." Ranma weighed in with a mild frown, who fixed her gaze on the floor as she gave the idea some serious thought.

It wasn't like she had any particular place to go, since her father's evasiveness concerning the acknowledgement of their own home probably meant that they didn't have one. And now that her training trip was — for all intents and purposes — over, nothing was lined up for her to do, either. Sure, she could make do with being on her own, even should she ever become disowned, but she wanted to avoid that if at all possible. However, becoming a part of a family with three girls — _as_ a girl — was a bit of a daunting prospect...

A familiar smell caught her attention, and what she saw when she looked up made her blink her eyes a few times in response. Within arm's reach was a mackerel being dangled by its tailfin, and beyond the hand holding it out to her was Kasumi's hope-filled visage.

"...Is that a bribe?" Akane wondered aloud, who was trying to figure out the nature of her sister's behavior. It wasn't that Kasumi didn't have any quirks, but the ones that she was used to seeing were usually passive or reactionary in nature, such as the times when she chose to be either oblivious or observant — if not downright critical — of other people and what they said or did around her. There were also times when she was unusually easygoing and/or calm, particularly during the occasions when she abruptly became that way when she had been anything but beforehand.

Nabiki pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. "Kasumi, you're _not_ helping."

Ranma looked between the fish and Kasumi, both puzzled and amused by the gesture, before glancing at the other girls, who were waiting for her reaction. It occurred to her, just then, that — despite being sisters — they were fairly different from one another. From what she had experienced so far, Kasumi was pretty much what she expected a traditional girl to be like (aside from the odd behavior), Nabiki seemed to be the most normal and modern girl of the three, and Akane appeared to be a bit of a tomboy.

With her mind set on living the rest of her life as a girl, she had intended to learn how to interact and fit in with other girls, and living with three sisters who had enough differences between them seemed like a good way of doing that. Besides which, she was a bit curious about what it would be like to live as a part of a family, in a house, rather than with her father in a tent. It would also serve as a litmus test for whether she would like interacting with girls, or if it would be too much of a hassle to fit in among them.

And the best part was that her father would be around to see it all happen, which wouldn't be the case if she were to strike it out on her own. It was the least that she could do for all of the grief that he had put her through, and whatever more he planned to add on to that with the arranged marriage. She needed to keep an eye on him, anyway, as it would be harder for him to surprise her with something when she already knew where he was and had at least _some_ idea of how he spent his time. As the saying went: keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.

"...Well, I'm not _that_ much of a cat," Ranma finally said, which appeared to dishearten Kasumi. "Still," she added, with an absent shrug of her shoulders, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to be your pet if it's just pretend."

"Really?" Nabiki asked, who just barely managed to keep the, "it's too good to be true," tone out of her voice.

Kasumi tossed the fish over her shoulder, so she could clap her hands together with unadulterated joy. "That's wonderful! I think this calls for a special meal for tonight's dinner!"

After everyone watched her leave the room with a skip in her step, their attention was unerringly drawn to the fish, which had landed on the face of the only man in the room. Akane was the first to speak after the silence that had descended upon the room, following the eldest sister's exit.

"What's gotten into _her_?" She wondered aloud.

Ranma gazed at her questioningly. "She's not normally like that?"

Akane prepared to answer, but a thought made her pause and frown, which allowed Nabiki to answer in her stead. "It's hard to say. She's not normally this," she paused to consider her wording, "excited."

"Anyway," she continued, wanting to get back on topic now that she had Ranma's attention, "are you really up to it?"

Ranma frowned, but nodded her head resolutely. "It's better than what _I_ had thought of. Although I still doubt that my old man will accept our refusal."

"Yeah," Nabiki agreed, as she regarded her father with a small measure of distaste, "I don't think ours will take it lying down, either." When one of Ranma's eyebrows rose in response to that, she lamely added, "Well, you know what I mean."

Since they were as ready as they were ever going to be for the miai to come, and her father was still unconscious, Akane came to a decision and approached Ranma purposefully. "Say, would you like to spar with me in the dojo?"

Ranma considered the state of the girls' father, then her own, before shrugging her shoulders. "I've got nothing better to do, and I'm in no hurry to butt heads with our fathers, so..."

A moment later, Nabiki watched silently as her younger sister proceeded to lead their guest out of the room. Once they were gone, she turned her attention toward the panda, which Ranma had taken into consideration before she had given her answer. "That's not her father... is it?"

* * *

When Akane and Ranma arrived at the dojo, neither said a word as they split apart and faced each other for their sparring match, the former wanting to get right down to business while the latter simply went along with it.

After Akane assumed the stance that she would start the spar with, she thought that it would be a good idea to determine just what she was up against. Assuming that Ranma had started her training journey after middle school, since it wasn't mandatory to attend high school, she asked, "So, how long were you on your trip?"

Ranma looked up and hummed thoughtfully for a moment. "I can't say for sure... I know it was longer than ten years, though."

That was enough of a surprise for Akane to slip out of the position that she had been holding, and she had to reassert her control and composure to prevent an embarrassing spill. "You were training like that for _over ten years_?"

To her, that level of devotion was reserved for crazies and fanatics. If not for a lack of aptitude in other things (not that she would readily admit such failings), family tradition and circumstance, she wouldn't have become a martial artist at all. By now she was proud to be a martial artist, but that pride had come grudgingly, not from any initial interest. Nowadays, though, she couldn't even tell if being a martial artist was a blessing or a curse...

"Well, yeah," Ranma answered casually, who didn't see anything strange or wrong about devoting one's life to martial arts. "Why?"

"I was just making sure," Akane replied, as she regained her focus and prepared to start the sparring match. "Boy or not, I would have toned it down if we weren't evenly matched. But, I take it that's not the case?"

Ranma wasn't exactly sure how to reply to that, in part because she was wondering what the other girl had against boys, so she shrugged her shoulders and said, "I guess?"

When Akane saw that Ranma was just going to stand where she was, and didn't bother with any kind of stance, she decided to initiate the sparring match. She held back a bit during her first round of attacks, just in case, but ceased doing so when she failed to strike anything but air. Despite trying her best to land a blow afterward, though, she soon found out that even her best wasn't enough to do the job.

Had their difference in skill been the only issue, then she wouldn't have become so upset by it. However, Ranma wasn't making any effort — at all — to take the offensive, and under normal circumstances she would have assumed that she wasn't being taken seriously. That would have been bad enough, but knowing that the girl had once been a boy probably meant that she was being treated as someone weak by default, as if all of her accomplishments as a martial artist didn't merit any acknowledgement.

She paused long enough between attacks to shout, "What do you think you're doing? Swing at me!"

When Ranma failed to heed her words in the engagement that followed, that's when her anger finally got the better of her. "If you're _really_ a girl," she growled, her voice rising in volume as she charged forward with the intent to put everything that she had into her next attack, "then you better start treating me like an equal _and hit me_!"

The next thing she knew, after seeing her fist enter the space where Ranma's face had once been, she was staring up at the ceiling, coughing and grasping her abdomen in pain. Then the person responsible for her condition was standing over her, looking down at her with a worried expression on her face.

"Are you okay?" Ranma asked.

After she got her breath back and under control, Akane sat up and casually said, "Yeah, I'm fine." She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with the backs of her hands before she continued. "You just caught me by surprise, is all."

"Sorry 'bout that," Ranma apologized, as she rubbed the back of her head. "I just reacted, and I didn't mean to hit you that hard..."

Akane looked up and studied Ranma's face, and thought about the nature of her words before she said, "It's okay." To prove her point, she got to her feet and spread her arms out, in order to present her evidence. "See?"

Ranma hesitated before she nodded her head once in agreement.

An awkward silence ensued, which gave Akane enough time to ponder her next action. She imagined that the boy-turned-(cat)girl had yet to realize the mistake that she had made during their sparring match, considering what she had said as a part of her apology, and that was a problem that needed to be addressed; especially if she was serious about being a girl. In all likelihood the problem probably wasn't restricted to the incident in question, but she felt that it would be prudent to stick with what was relevant for the time being.

"So," she began, with her arms akimbo and her expression turning serious, "why did it take you so long to do more than avoid my attacks?"

Ranma looked away in embarrassment. "I kinda forgot that it was alright for a girl to hit another girl."

When her gaze returned to Akane, it was immediately evident that she had said something wrong. The other girl's expression was too mixed for her to discern exactly what feelings her words had evoked, or to what degree for any individual feeling, but she was pretty sure that she was not happy in general. In fact, it looked as if she were about to yell at her.

Akane almost had, but she had thought better of it and calmed down a bit. If she and her sisters were going to avoid being engaged, they would _all_ need to treat Ranma as a fellow girl, not as a boy. And if she ended up living with their family for any significant length of time, it would be better to act as a teacher than to be antagonistic, in order to make sure that there wasn't — or wouldn't be — a voyeur lurking beneath the surface.

That, and she really didn't like the idea of being bested by a boy.

When she was ready to speak, it was with a glare and an edge to her voice. "It's not about being a boy or a girl. When we were sparring, we were supposed to be _martial artists_." Seeing the realization dawn on the other girl's face, she added, "What you did wasn't a courtesy: it was insulting."

She didn't trust herself to say anything more, so she turned about and left the dojo in a bit of a huff, with the intent to work off some steam by breaking a few more bricks in the yard. Ranma had opened her mouth and raised her hand, wanting to apologize to her, but she couldn't find her voice. She ended up watching the other girl's exit, feeling bad as well as a mite frustrated.

Not wanting to stick around the "scene of the crime," she eventually followed Akane's example and left the dojo. She wanted a better place to reflect on things, without having a constant reminder of the latest incident, and she found it at a section of the house that looked into a different portion of the garden than what could be seen from the family room. A part of the engawa was there, so she chose to sit there instead of finding a place in the garden.

As her eyes fell upon the hard-to-miss sunflowers that were within her field of vision, she sighed as she thought back on what had just happened with Akane. She had been right about their gender being irrelevant within the context of being martial artists, seeing as physical endangerment was part and parcel of training and combat. It was one thing to take precautions to avoid injury, but it was quite another to inhibit one's ability to be a martial artist by being chivalrous.

Until recently she'd never had any reason to put any serious thought into the differences between the sexes and how they were treated, because she had been content with her own and hadn't seen why anything else should matter if they didn't affect her directly. She'd never seen anyone complain about their sex, or about what was expected of them as said sex, so it had never been an issue worth being conscious of. Now that she was a girl, and she finally had her own questions and complaints, she couldn't help being conscious of all of those things related to one's sex and gender.

Of course, since this was a recent development, she wasn't yet in the habit of seeing things outside of her usual perspective, so the kind of mistake that she had made with Akane were still possible. She still had a lot to learn, after all, and it didn't help that the newness of her situation, as well as the uncertainty of her future, made her reluctant to move forward and adapt at a pace that corresponded better with her resolve to go through with it.

She was just glad that she could continue to be a martial artist. Irrational fear had made her unsure if she could be one — despite the evidence — before she had met the Joketsuzoku, a group of warrior women who lived in a remote village in China and devoted their lives to the martial arts. She'd never seen the like of it before, so she had assumed that it was very uncommon for females to take martial arts that seriously, but it had been enough to reassure her that it would be possible to remain a martial artist. It had also helped when she had been bested by one of them, despite the enhancements and neko-ken that had made it possible to finally overcome her father.

She was just beginning to wonder how Cologne — in her beyond-old age — was doing, when she heard a familiar voice say, "Oh, there you are!"

She'd been so preoccupied by her thoughts that she hadn't noticed Kasumi until she had spoken, who was carrying a towel as she closed the distance between them. It wasn't hard to figure out what the older girl was up to, if she was looking for her with a towel in her possession, and she didn't really think that it was necessary. Training with her father had made her accustomed to accumulating a lot of filth before being able to take a bath, and a little rain and sweat was nothing compared to that; she could wait until it was nighttime to clean herself up, when the only "activity" that was expected to happen afterward was a night's rest in bed.

When Kasumi sat down beside her, she said, "I heard that you had gone to spar with Akane, and I thought that you would like to take a bath afterward."

"Thanks," Ranma replied, "but I'll be okay for now."

"Oh?" Kasumi voiced, who tilted her head and regarded the catgirl with curiosity. "Does that mean that you gave yourself a tongue bath?"

"Huh?" Was Ranma's initial response, who had been caught off guard by the nature of the question and how innocently it had been delivered. When her mind finally caught up with the particulars of the question and what was being implied, it made her rather flustered with embarrassment. "No! Of course not!"

Kasumi set the towel on Ranma's lap and adamantly said, "You must be all sweaty from your workout, so it's to the bath with you."

Ranma didn't have it in her to argue with — or otherwise resist — the older girl, and so she soon found herself being guided toward the bath.

* * *

Back in the family room, Saotome Genma had recently finished having a tearful reunion with his long-time friend, Tendo Soun, and the former of the two had followed that up with an explanation for why his son had appeared before his friend as a girl while he himself had been a panda. Considering all of the things that Soun had seen and experienced while under the tutelage of "he-who-must-not-be-named," ofttimes right alongside Genma, he accepted everything that had been told to him without any questions.

"So that girl really _is_ your son," Soun said with evident relief, after Genma had finished telling him his story.

Genma crossed his arms and nodded his head solemnly. "That's right. Unfortunately, unlike myself, he has some control over his curse. That wouldn't have been bad in and of itself, but a village of barbarian women have put strange ideas into his head, and now he's set on being a girl. I've had no success in changing his mind."

"That's quite a problem," Soun observed.

Genma grunted his agreement before saying, "I have some ideas, though. We can trigger his curse if he's asleep, or when suitably distracted. The problem is that — until now — I have been unable to think of anything that the boy would willingly stay a man for."

"Until now, you say?" Soun wondered aloud, as he stroked his chin. "Am I to assume that my help is required, then?"

"Yes," Genma confirmed, his expression becoming more serious. "More importantly, we may need to enlist the help of one of your daughters, so we can ensnare my son in a trap that will leave him feeling responsible as a man." Seeing the worried look on his friend's face, he allayed his concerns by quickly adding, "Not that things will go as far as _he_ would have taken them. You can be sure of that."

Soun's hair had risen above his head just from his former master being referred to without his name being used. "Believe me, _I will_."

"So," Soun continued thoughtfully, after a brief pause in their conversation, "I imagine that the first challenge will be to keep your son here?"

Genma frowned and looked up toward the ceiling, as if for inspiration. "I'm reluctant to say it, old friend, but even _I_ am unsure of how to accomplish that."

* * *

Miai: An arranged meeting where the possibility of marriage is explored.


End file.
